Hawks' wife and children cope with loss, especially this Father's Day

One night last week, the 5-year-old son of late WMAQ-Ch. 5 sportscaster Daryl Hawks was watching television when he remembered what happened to the star of his favorite show.

"They're so used to seeing their dad on TV that CJ said, 'Oh, yeah, I forgot, Daddy's in heaven. I thought he was at work,''' said Sandy Hawks, Daryl's widow. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh.'''

Ohmygosh. Words often still run together and fail Sandy when she tries explaining to CJ and his older sister, Jasmine, 7, why their father tragically was taken from them so young. Hawks, a healthy 38-year-old man robust on- and off-camera, died May 12 in his Atlanta hotel room while in town covering Game 6 of the Bulls-Hawks playoff series. The autopsy was inconclusive; the emptiness still inexplicable.

The constant ache makes it hard for Sandy to turn on the 10 p.m. news anymore. Out in Buffalo, Hawks' mother, Leila, stopped watching sporting events because of the constant reminders. To suggest Father's Day will be the most difficult one yet for the adoring family Hawks left behind diminishes how painful the other 38 days have been since it happened.

Authorities tell Sandy results from further testing on her husband's heart will take another few weeks. Not that any report ever will contain all the answers she and others seek.

"Sometimes cases come back and there's no cause at all and they told us to be prepared for that as well, so that's the tough part because you're like, God, I don't understand,'' Sandy said inside the family's River Forest home as Jasmine played a video game on the couch. "It just doesn't make sense. He was healthy. We ate right. Every single night and the first thing in the morning I have to ask myself, 'How could this possibly happen to him?' Why him?'''

The last time Sandy spoke to her husband was on the phone around 1 a.m. several hours before hotel workers found him unresponsive. Before they hung up and said good night, Daryl kidded his wife about watching the movie "Twilight,'' and sounded excited about covering the Bulls. It was a typically warm, light-hearted conversation between a couple that celebrated their 10th anniversary in April and had come to cherish such stolen late-night moments Daryl's job made necessary.

The last time Sandy saw her husband he was hamming it up the way Hawks did as naturally in the living room as he did in studio.

"On the day he left, he was like a Slim-Fast commercial, holding up his jeans and saying, 'Look how much weight I lost, I have to buy new clothes now,''' Sandy recalled, smiling. "I said, 'You look great Daryl.' He looked great.''

Chasing two little kids around can keep a man fit and trim, and Hawks enjoyed nothing more than playing with CJ and Jasmine — his spitting images. He gently volleyed with them on the tennis courts across the street. He taught them how to swing a golf club. They threw around the baseball and football the way so many dads savor doing with their children. The way Hawks never did with his own biological father, who was out of the picture after he was 2, creating a void his stepfather Nick filled.

But for the guy who loved teaching sports to his kids at home and chasing Bulls and Bears, et cetera, at work, nothing beat game night on Harlem Avenue. Every Friday night the Hawks family would gather around the table to play favorite board games and laugh past bedtime.

"His weekends were definitely family weekends, always,'' Sandy said. "No nights with the boys. It was good for the kids to see Daddy be fun.''

It was those memories that inspired little Jasmine to read the poem, "Best Dad,'' at her father's funeral in Buffalo. It was that devotion his 21-year-old son from a previous relationship, Daryl Jr., referenced in a statement that called Hawks, "my hero that loved life and his family even more.'' It was that fervor for fatherhood that co-worker Paula Faris, who shared a desk with Hawks for nearly three years at WMAQ-TV, often overheard because her colleague didn't know how to whisper.

"I'll always remember his nightly conversations with Sandy and the kids,'' Faris said. "Here's a guy who can crush you with his hand, yet turning to a gentle giant when speaking with his family. Nothing got between Daryl and his clan.''

I sat next to Hawks in April during a 4 1/2-hour flight to Vancouver for the Blackhawks-Canucks playoff series. Typically he talked kids more than pucks, pictures and all. Within a minute of landing, Hawks was the guy in the back of the plane holding the conversation everybody heard whether they wanted or not. Hey, little guy, how's my boy?